


Heat

by theclockiscomplete



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclockiscomplete/pseuds/theclockiscomplete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An expansion on the tiny sand piranha scene at the beginning of "The Caretaker" that explores how they escaped, how in Rassilon's name they ended up chained to posts, and provides bonus Twelve suspecting he has a virus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heat

“A rational, peaceable civilization, eh?”  
  
“Clara, can we drop the subject? I told you. Wrong century. Now please hush so I can concentrate. The heat is making it hard to think.”  
  
Clara grunted and jerked at her chains, but they held fast. She sighed and leaned against the pole she was currently bound to and tried her hardest to think of a way out. _We just have to outsmart the chains, _the Doctor had said, but the knob didn’t seem to understand that outsmarting something implied thinking on both ends. They had tried pulling until their wrists ached and chafed, wiggling until Clara had sand in places it should never be, and calling for help—all with the same result. _Bloody idiot. All he says is “Real sand castle” and I just hop in like we’re going on holiday. _“There’s no way out of this,” she said after a final burst of chain jerking. “We’re going to die out here.” The Doctor was studying the metal intently, avoiding her eyes.____  
  
“Pass me the vibrocutters,” he said.  
  
“They’re in my pocket,” she said slowly.  
  
“Pass them to me then.”  
  
“In my other jacket. At home.”  
  
“Why have you got two jackets—is one of them faulty?”  
  
She’d never wished she could thump him so hard, and that was saying something. “Look. I don’t have the vibrocutters and if I had the vibrocutters I wouldn’t be able to _pass you the vibrocutters. _” She rattled the chains on her wrist for emphasis. Talking was becoming difficult. As was breathing. Though the atmosphere was non-toxic, it was thin and incredibly hot and did little to fill her lungs. All the shouting hadn’t helped. “Are we going to starve to death out here?” She blinked sweat out of an eye.__  
  
“Of course we won’t starve,” the Doctor retorted. “The sand piranhas will get us long before that.” For a split second she thought he was joking. Then she remembered who she was talking to, and her face fell. She looked around in horror.  
  
“What do they look like?” she asked. She had thoughts of sand fish swimming at them from all sides. Right. Yes. Desert fish. She’d seen weirder. Tiny desert fish. Perhaps she could squish them. Yeah. Fish. No problem.  
  
“Sand lizards,” the Doctor replied. “About the size of a full-grown Gila Monster.” He completely missed her incredulous look. “Sacred animal of the Mintlehurg. Of course they’re the only other living creature on the planet, so it’s not like their deity had many options. That’s why we’re out here: sacrifice.” As if to punctuate his statement, a rapid clicking began in the silent heat, somewhere in the distance. Spots swam before her eyes; she did her best to pull her knees up and put her head between them. The end result was little more than her head dipping toward her chest. “Clara?” The Doctor turned as far as his chains would allow. “Clara, I need you to look for a rock or something sharp. You can’t just—” he waved his chained hands—“even your tan here. We have to get out.” Clara found it within herself to sit up straight and glare at him.  
  
“You listen here,” she said, but the sudden movement caught up with her. Spots bloomed in her vision, running together and growing darker as her head grew lighter, and then she was unconscious, slumped sideways against the pole.  
  
The Doctor swore his hearts stopped. “Clara!” He watched her intently until he detected the slight rise and fall of her chest. He exhaled in relief. “Oh boy.” As if in agreement, the clicking sounded again.

*******************************************  


He would always do whatever it took, he silently admitted as he took measured, steady paces across the burning sand. Clara hung limp in his arms, her head curled on his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his neck, reassuring him with every meter that she was still alive. It had been the pillars themselves that saved them, ultimately. Though nearly impossible to discern, the woven metal at their tops bracketed panes of clear glass, meant to focus the rising sun onto a nearby hill. Once heated to a certain temperature, the sand piranhas’ blood temperature would rise and they would come to life, pouring out like ants. It gave him an idea. He stopped trying to reach for the sonic in his jacket pocket and focused instead on his trouser pocket. It had taken him around fifteen minutes, but he’d finally managed to twist and angle himself just enough to reach the handle of his magnifying glass. It took another twenty minutes for the sun to rise to the right position for him to concentrate its light through the small bit of glass, and fifteen for it to burn a link his chain enough for it to bend. By that point, the super-concentrated light was just at the base of the hill. He smashed the glass with a nearby bone, and the shaft of light dissipated. It would buy them only a bit of time—eventually the sun would rise directly over the hill and the piranhas would awaken. He glanced down at his companion, whose cracked lips were parted slightly and resting alongside his collarbone. His thumb at some point had begun rubbing her arm in a manner that might have been construed as comforting by lesser people. He frowned. He hadn’t told his thumb to do that. Buggering new body—mind of its own all around. It might have been faster, he mused as he shifted her gently, for him to have left her and brought the TARDIS back to get her. But it might not have been, either, and sappy rogue thumb or no, he’d never take that chance.  
  
The TARDIS was where he’d parked it, thank Rassilon, and he stumbled inside and slammed the door. The console room was dim and the air coming from the vents damp and cool, nearly euphoric in its caress of his body. He carried Clara down a hallway and turned in to the first room he encountered. He was surprised to find that it was his own; half the time he couldn’t even find it himself. The large, circular bed in the center had the black covers pulled back, and he set Clara gently down in the center of it. He left and returned a moment later with a rag soaked with cold water, which he dripped into her mouth before dabbing at her fevered face with it. Apparently whatever virus had taken over his thumb had spread to his entire left arm because it was drawing his hand down Clara’s cheek in such a way that if the infection spread to his eyes he stood a higher-than-average chance of crying. He made a mental note to take something to counter the virus before then. Another mental note to immunize Clara too; the last thing he needed was her sick with a weepy infection. Slowly, she began to come round. Her eyes finally opened, warm and dark and groggy, and the thumb of his left hand, stupid ringleader that it was, brushed back and forth across her cheek. “Hi,” he said. His voice was raspy and sounded oddly strangled. Clara smiled and burrowed her face closer to his hand with a yawn. Her face fell after a minute and she shifted a little.  
  
“Oi,” she said quietly. “So much sand in my…everywhere. But you…feel good.” She wrapped her arms around his outstretched one.  
  
“Of course,” he said. “I have a lower body temperature than you. Even when sunburned. Mine’s going away already. Time Lord Biology and all of that. But Clara,” the note of urgency in his voice caused her to meet his gaze. One of his hearts squeezed for certain. Possibly both. “I think I’ve caught a virus.” Clara’s eyebrows furrowed in a kind of confused concern. “My arm,” he pointed. “It’s doing this weepy…comforting thing and I can’t stop it and I think it’s spreading.” He blinked as Clara’s browned face broke into a tired smile and she chuckled. “What. What is it? Are you sick too?” Clara hauled herself up and turned the Doctor around, tugging at his jacket. “I don’t get it,” he said as she turned him back around and began unbuttoning his shirt. “I don’t have anything on me. Are you checking for a rash? I did feel some tightness in my chest but I don’t think it would show externally—” his words left him in a rush of air as Clara tugged him down onto the cool sheets beside her and squirmed close. His face was buried in her hair and he breathed her in for a long silent moment. All was still for a long minute until: “Clara?” She made a small noise of annoyance and he felt it vibrate in the hollow of his elbow. “Is this going to help?” She opened her eyes and he was suddenly aware of how close they were. He waited for the initial, spooked-rabbit reaction that usually accompanied his awareness of their proximity, but it didn’t come.  
  
“Yes,” Clara said, and the sheer depth of sincerity in her brown eyes would have been enough to bring him to his knees if he’d been standing. She dropped her head back onto his arm and he gathered her close until her steady breathing echoed once again against his throat. Her hands were folded between them and he rubbed her bruised wrists tenderly, eyes slowly drooping shut. She was warm against him and in a matter of minutes, he was asleep.


End file.
